A Battle of Ills
by Windswift
Summary: [Skyward Sword] When Zelda is sick, and when Link is sick. Somehow these both seem to amount to the same thing and Link is not entirely sure how this always happens.
1. When Zelda is sick

Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda

_**A Battle of Ills  
**When Zelda is sick_

In the afternoon her father pokes his head through the door again, and Zelda hears the creaking in her sleep. Her throat is dry and it hurts to swallow and her neck aches the way it's twisted on her pillow, and she knows she isn't actually asleep at all, damn.

She wishes she was.

Gaepora takes Zelda's hand out of her book, smooths the pages her fingers have creased, finds a bookmark on her desk to stick between them, and lays it back on her bed. Her fingers feel cold and weird without the book pressing them, so she tucks her hand under her pillow.

Her father strokes her hair. "Would you like anything?" he asks. "Henya has soup in the kitchen. I'll bring you some, my dear, if you feel like it."

Zelda's throat feels gross, and it's ruining her appetite if she had one in the first place, and she knows if she sits up her head will pound.

"Alright," she says anyway. "A little."

Gaepora smiles and pats her shoulder, and Zelda smiles back until she grimaces at the ache that shoots up her neck when she rolls over to watch him go.

He doesn't, immediately. He pauses by her desk. Zelda braces herself and twists her head to look and once she works this crick out of her neck she's never going to fall asleep while reading again, especially not when she already feels like crap.

Her father is rearranging Link on her desk, so he looks a bit less like his arm and his head on his arm are about to slip off the edge any moment and send him crashing to the floor. There's nothing to be done about the way Link'll probably be as stiff and sore as Zelda when he decides to stop napping in her chair, though. Gaepora gives up on that one, squeezes Link's shoulder too, and closes the door behind him when he steps out.

Zelda grabs one of the throw pillows lined up on her bed. And, naturally, throws it. At Link.

It hits him square in the head, because Zelda has great aim even when she's sick, and halfway across the dorm room isn't really that far at all. Link doesn't stir.

By the third pillow, though, he's blinking and stretching and sitting up with a bit of wincing. Which is perfect, seeing as Zelda's out of pillows to throw anyway.

"What are you doing?" she demands. She pokes a finger at him, and then gets tired of holding her arm up and lets it flop over the edge of the bed. "Go away. I'm resting. Don't you have flying that you need to be practicing?"

Link stares at her like he's still mostly asleep, and Zelda bets he came and found her as soon as he could escape from lessons. And it makes her feel-feel-irritated, yes, it annoys her that Link thinks Zelda needs someone to sit with her still whenever she's ill, that she can't manage a day or two stuck in bed moping and feeling miserable all on her own.

Honestly, she's going to be just fine and Link knows that.

Zelda sighs and flicks her hand. "If you're going to keep hanging around, then, at least pick up those pillows and bring them back over here so I can throw them at your head again."

Link smiles, and crouches down to grab each pillow, and arranges them along the edge of her bed. He rests his hands on his hips while he admires his handiwork.

Zelda reaches for the nearest one and swings it up right into his face. "You're going to get sick from me. So get out."

Link shakes his head and replaces the pillow, and Zelda didn't manage to wipe that smile off his face even a bit. But talking makes her have to swallow, and swallowing hurts a lot right now, and she doesn't feel up to a hopeless battle of making Link see how stupid he's being.

So Zelda doesn't shove him away when he hovers while she pushes herself up and presses her fingertips against the lightheadedness throbbing in her skull. She lets him fuss with the pillows to cushion her back. And she certainly doesn't say a thing when her father comes back a moment later and leaves _two_ bowls of soup on her desk.


	2. When Link is sick

Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda

_**A Battle of Ills  
**When Link is sick_

About fifteen minutes into morning sparring practice, Link stares up at the ceiling of the hall and thinks that he really wouldn't mind just staying on the floor so long as no one steps on him.

This is not a perfect plan. He really should reach up and push the practice mask off his head, at least, because his eyes are kind of itchy and hot and he wants to rub at them. He thinks about it.

"Whoah! Oh come on, Zelda, I didn't hit him that hard!"

He thinks about it very much, and his hands are still lying on the floor with the rest of him when Zelda kneels by his shoulder.

"Link? What's wrong?" she says. "Are you hurt?"

She grabs his mask and yanks it off. He grimaces when the material catches his nose on the way over, but Zelda doesn't mumble a _sorry_. She just looks at Link for a moment, and then she's pressing her hand against his forehead and twisting to look over her shoulder.

"Commander Eagus, tell Link to go back to his room," Zelda says. "He's sick and he should be in bed."

Link is really quite comfortable right here on the floor of the sparring hall, but probably Zelda's got a point. He's a lot less likely to get stepped on in his own bed.

Eagus pulls Link to his feet and helps him shrug off his practice gear. "Got that fighting spirit, haven't you!" he says. "Good to see! But you do look a tad pale, so off you go now." He claps Link's shoulder.

Link is supposed to fold up the practice uniform and put it away at the end of sparring. He means to, but his head feels kind of funny when he bends to pick it up, and anyway Zelda's grabbed his hand and she's walking off with it.

"A cup of hot pumpkin soup, that'll do the trick!" Eagus calls after them. Link twists to look back as he's tugged along, and Eagus waves him off as he collects Link's things from the floor. "Great stuff! You'll be right as rain in no time."

Link nods. It sounds like a brilliant idea. When they enter the Academy Zelda walks the pair of them straight past the kitchen, though, so Link guesses he won't be cooking any soup after all.

Zelda squeezes his hand, then opens his bedroom door. "You should have said you didn't feel well," she says, tugging at the blanket on his bed.

The truth is that Link didn't feel not well, really. But for some reason that's never the response Zelda likes to hear, so he just sits on the edge of his bed and leans forward to take off his boots.

Zelda's already pulling them off.

His head smacks into hers and, ow, that actually does make him feel kind of not well after all. He rubs his forehead, and Zelda pushes him down and tucks the blanket around him even though Link usually doesn't bother with it.

"Get some rest," Zelda says. "I'll be back at lunch."

Link watches the door close behind her.

Link looks at his shelves and thinks that he really should water his plants.

His bed is even more comfortable than the floor of the sparring hall, though.

He still hasn't gotten up to check the pots when he rolls on his side, still half-dozing, before he even hears the window hatch banging up. It does, and he smiles at the wooden thump and stretches his arm out.

The tips of his fingers brush against his Loftwing's beak. The Loftwing pokes its head further into his room and fixes him with one eye, chirring gently. Link can hear the curiosity, and he slides his fingers up to the start of the soft, red fur. He's fine, really. He feels bad worrying his friends, because he's fine-but it makes him warm inside anyway.

Or maybe that's the fever.

The Loftwing screeches and withdraws and the window clunks shut behind it. Link thinks it's probably almost time for lunch, with the way that his stomach is shrinking from hunger, so there's really not much point in closing his eyes again and taking a nap.

He looks at his desk, where his sketchbook is lying open beside his latest carving. It's a likeness of Mia, or it will be once he finishes working the final details into the wood and can paint it.

Well, Link's got plenty of free time on his hands at the moment.

This is not a perfect plan either, because that is how Zelda finds him a little while later when she comes to check on him and bring him something to eat-gouge in hand, resting his eyes, his head laying in the scattering of wood shavings across his desk, and snoring faintly.

Zelda shakes her head, and then she shakes Link.

"I meant you should rest _in bed_," she says. She's taken over his chair to eat her stir-fry, which is alright, because Link is cold now after his nap and it's comfier to sit on his bed with the blanket pulled up around his shoulders. He picks a curl of wood off his own stir-fry and eats too.

Link is pretty sure Zelda is supposed to eat in the dining room with everyone else, instead of staying in his room where he is sick. He's pretty sure that's what Zelda always tells him.

"You're running a fever," Zelda says. "Shut up."


End file.
